I went to New York again this past weekend for the second time in as many months. MaLady said her friends tell her I must have a mistress in The City. Well, I do.. and her name is Comedy. I spend the weekend taking in shows, meeting other comics, and performing a little my own self. Last time I went I said to myself, “I don’t ever want to leave!” Well, just be careful what you wish for.

Friday night I went to see the “Portable Comedy” show at the Gershwin Hotel on East 27th Street. Hosted by Julius Sharpe, the show featured standup from Chris DeLuca (Late, Late Show & SNL), Liam McEneaney (Conan, Premium Blend), and James Oakes (opens for Lewis Black) PLUS free hard liquor for anybody who wanted it. $5 at the door for hilarious funny ha-ha’s + a selection of booze = a night of fun. I love comedy.

To intro a bit, Julius asked if anybody had ever been laid-off from a job. My hand went up. “Oh yeah? Who was the employer?” “There have been several.” “Really? What’s the problem? Drugs?” “No, it turns out I’m not that employable.” “Ever thought about getting into comedy?” “I do comedy.”

After the show, the comedians gave out their fliers, I gave them mine in return. Everybody was really funny & seemed like good people. “Time Out New York” gave the show a star, and for good reason.. Where else can you go and pay five bucks for quality entertainment AND cheap booze? I mean BESIDES Jesse Perry‘s mom’s house.

Saturday I spent a long time walking around the Lower East Side, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Financial District, SoHo and TriBecca. I checked out the new Apple store in SoHo, and stumbled upon some sort of street fair thing with food, vendors with arts and crafts, massages, and a guy from the “Change of Heart” show walking around trying to break up happy, superficial couples.

An oriental lady offered to massage me for one minute for free. I told her to go for it.. she did a great job, and then asked me if I wanted a 10-minute work-over. “No.” “What?! Just ten dollar!” “No, thanks.” She pulled me in close and whispered, “Ok, ok.. for you, five dollar.” “No, thanks.. I gotta go.” She seemed shocked that I would use her for her free minute and move on, but that’s just the kinda guy I am: offer me something free, and I’ll take it without guilt.

There were a lot of artists selling paintings and photographs. One woman in particular had signs up proclaiming, “SAVE NEW YORK STREET ARTISTS!” I couldn’t resist. Her hand-drawn propaganda said, “We saved the whales (didn’t we?).. now let’s save the NYC street artists!” She had legal pads where you could sign your name in of her cause. I laughed, “save the street artists? From what? Their own pretension?” Silly artists.

I really had no interest in seeing Ground Zero, but in my meanderings I ended up walking thru that area. If you haven’t been there, let me describe the scene..

Imagine a big car wreck. Some people find an alternate route to travel and go about their business.. some slow down to watch the carnage.. some people hear about it on the scanner, and go out to get in the way. The World Trade Center site is pretty much the same thing, but on a much larger scale. It’s a lot of people standing around looking.. plus you have the street vendor vultures selling 9/11 souvenirs. The fences covered with s and t-shirts and well-wishes are still there, but they have graffiti on them.

It was weird, ’cause last time I was down in that neighborhood was about five years ago. I had the crappiest hotel room I’ve ever spent way too much money on.. PLUS the radiator was cranked up all the way with the knob ripped off (in the middle of summer). I certainly couldn’t sleep, so I was wandering around Manhattan at about 3 a.m. It’s amazingly peaceful in certain parts of the city at that hour.. the Financial District was nearly silent and I remember walking around the WTC area and being stunned by the lack of activity. It’s a strange feeling to walk down there now, no matter what time of day it is.

I met up with some friends and took the train to Brooklyn to eat at Junior’s. This place is apparently the Mecca of cheesecake. When you walk in you pass by glass cases full of all of their varieties & realize that you can’t walk out of there without at least trying one. They have all the articles written about them framed on the walls, and when going to the bathroom I noticed one headline that said something like, “Brooklyn Is Fat Because of Junior’s.” I laughed, but when I went back to the table and looked around I realized that 90% of the people in there were REALLY obese.

Even though my sandwich was enormous I had to have a slice of cheesecake. It didn’t help that I had been pounding down drinks, either. I originally ordered a white russian, but saw my friend’s strawberry daiquiri and had to get one. For a while I was double-fisting the drinks.. when someone pointed that out, I made a funny by picking up my water as well and tried to drink from three glasses at once. (And no, I’m NOT tonguing the strawberry.. that’s just an unfortunate angle.)

I was so stuffed I felt ill. What better way to top that off than by going out drinking! I met up with some old friends from my UT-Knoxville days at a little country/western-themed bar called Doc Holidays. We drank PBR and stacked the cans up in towers until they fell on us. Occasionally, the bartender girl would jump up on the bar and start clogging. Living in Nashville, I can’t stand stupid little country bars.. but for some reason it was fun to see that kinda stuff going down in the heart of New York City. In SAT exam terms: country bars are to Nashville as rats are to New York City.

Sunday was a lazy day. I watched a freaky movie about a German transsexual rock star which began weird, then got more and more bizarre until it just kind of ended. In the evening, I headed down to the East Village to check out FaceBoyz’ open mic at Surf Reality. Sign up was at 7:45, the show started at 8. I got number 32 (there were about 40 people signed up.. maybe 70 people there in all). They did the first nine, took a 10 minute break, then continued the show.. I ended up going on stage at 2:15 a.m. or so. There were three or four people left after me, then they gave away the prizes: a gay porn video tape, a copy of “Modern Woman’s Guide To Domination,” and a new cellphone.

Monday I strolled thru Central Park and read a book in the spot where I once camped out for three days. Later I wandered down to the Ed Sullivan Theater to bother Letterman’s staff before taking a cab to the airport. Here’s where the story turns ugly.

Arriving at the airport early, I checked in at my gate at 6 p.m. The lady at the counter said my flight was on-time and scheduled to depart at 6:50, so I headed for the bar. The bar area was about 30 yards away from the gate. I had a couple beers and talked to a few people, then paid my tab and headed down toward the gate at about 6:30. I heard my name on the intercom and began to run. I got to the gate within 20 seconds of hearing my name, but the airplane was gone.

I asked the snotty girl behind the counter why the plane left 20 minutes early, and she said, “We PAGED you.” “Yeah, and I ran.. but it’s already gone!” A lady ran up to the counter and asked why the plane left so early. “We PAGED you,” said The Snot. As if that covers it. “Oh, you paged us? Ok. We’re not mad now. Cool.” Suck it, USair.

“Well, when’s the next flight out?” I ask. “Tomorrow morning at 7 a.m.” She said it with this look on her face like she was teaching me a lesson. I would have liked to roast her fat ass on a spit, but didn’t give her the pleasure of seeing me visibly pissed off. I had heard that wacky juggler Scot Nery was in New York, so I called him to see what he was doing. You know you’re in trouble when you call a guy who juggles knives for help.

Scot heroically came to my assistance. We took a cab to the nearest train stop in Queens, then took the train to the Upper West Side. Scot was staying at a youth hostel up around 104th Street and thought maybe he could sneak me in. First, we went over to the Underground Lounge to see if their open mic night was still going.. and watched a really drunk guy stumble all over the bar before challenging the bouncers to a fight. Seeing no opportunity for stage time, we headed back to the Hostel.

We asked the security guy about the cheapest ways to get to LaGuardia and with him distracted, snuck in. Each room in the place had six bunk beds.. that’s 12 dudes per room. Luckily, Scot’s room had an extra empty bed. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. and laid down to try to sleep a few hours. Scot says, “If someone comes and throws you out of their bed, well… I dunno.” I figured I’d just head back to the airport.

It didn’t happen, though. Not much of anything happened.. except it felt weird trying to sleep in a room with strange dudes all around (and in bunk beds, nonetheless). It took me about an hour or so before I passed out. It just seemed like this situation would probably be pretty close to the plot on that tape of gay porn they gave away at Surf Reality.

I got up and caught a bus back to Queens, via Harlem. It was my first time thru that neighborhood, and all I could think of was, “So this is where Willis and Arnold were from?” I also learned something about the New York Metro bus system: It costs $1.50 to ride, and they only accept MetroCards and change. If you don’t want to pay, just have $2 cash in your hand and offer it to the driver saying “it’s all I’ve got.” They don’t accept cash, and don’t have time to argue so they’ll just get disgusted and tell you to sit down on the bus.. you ride for free! I’ll bet it doesn’t work twice with the same driver, though.

It was a fun trip up until USair went out of their way to piss people off. I’ve tried very hard not to have any airline jokes, but I’m afraid I’ll fall to the Dark Side of the Farce very soon. It’s also unfair that every time I tell this story, when people hear “..so I went to the bar” they say, “uh-huh.. there ya go.” Booze isn’t the issue here! The plane left 20 minutes early and they were bastards about it.

As much as I love New York, when it’s time to go home and see MaLady.. it’s time to go home and see MaLady. I’ll be back, though.. my mistress calls.

We live in frightening times. Acts of terrorists (or “freedom fighters” as the US called them back when we trained them in these techniques and supplied them with weapons and supplies in the 80′s) have filled many people around the world with a fear that was unknown to us until just a few weeks ago. How can I tell people are scared? My email inbox is filled with messages with “FWD: FWD: re: fwd: FWD- FWD: RE:” in the subject field.

I’ve been a long-time critic of lame-ass forwards and the people who send them. If you’ve read my past columns (and now that I think about it, there’s not that great of a probability that you have) you’ve heard me run off on tangents about this inconsiderate, bandwidth-wasting annoyance. This is one of those things I keep talking about because people keep sending them!

Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from my friends and family. There is nothing I love more than to get a short note from a buddy.. or a long, involved, well-thought-out letter. As long as what you’re sending me is original content.. you expressing your feelings, thoughts and opinions… or acting silly, just sending a goofy note of nonsense… or being informative, sending some bit of knowledge I may find handy somehow. These are all valid reasons for clicking on “send.” What I hate is getting the stupid junk chain-mail that the internet-virgin housewives and other AOL-users send back and forth to each other until it eventually ends up coming my way seven or eight times from different people. Each thinking that they’re being very clever for sending everybody they know some stupid, cliched crap.

I slam AOL here because, well, it sucks. It’s a giant stinking monster that infects and bogs down the real internet with it’s masses of morons. Get on any USENET Newsgroup of your choice and look for off-topic posts filled with poor logic, grammar and spelling.. look for the trolls trying to start fights.. look for the complete idiots.. I’ll bet 90% of them have “@aol.com” in their email address. Why? Because “it’s so easy!” and as we all know, stupid people need easy solutions. Not that there aren’t legitimate, smart, creative and nice people who use AOL.. but they are in the minority, and are guilty by association.. and are contributing to the evil global conglomerate which is AOL-Time/Warner. Get a real internet service provider.. get a permanent, broadband connection and get out of dial-up hell. It’s the year 2001, for Megatheos’ sake. Once again, I’ve digressed.

Normally these ridiculous forwards fall into one of these categories:

• THIS IS SO FUNNY!! - I forgot to mention that the “Forward This Crap To Everybody I Know” idiots typically type in ALL-CAPS because they are oblivious to the generally-accepted idea that “shouting” is rude and annoying.. of course, they’re usually completely unaware of the world around them. Anyway, this type of forward contains lame “story” jokes that are 5-10 minute reads before you get to any sort of punch line. Another abomination is the list of jokes about blondes or rednecks or whatever.. some of these would be funny if everybody hadn’t heard them all before, and if they were re-written, and all the “dead” words and phrases were edited out..
• L@@K AT THIS! – This message will invariably have a file attached. A honking 300KB or larger executable file that plays some sorry animation on your screen while it infects your hard drive with whatever the virus of the week is. Either that, or the file is an image somebody altered.. so Osama bin Laden is pounding a goat from the rear, or Clinton and Gore look like Beavis and Butt-head, or it’s a squirrell standing up showing off his horse’s schlong. Some of these are pretty nicely done, but the majority have been cut and pasted together by some teen whose Photoshop skills are sophmoric at best. Telltale signs are when they have no concept of lighting sources and how shadows fall. These are simple concepts that amateurs often overlook.
• URGENT VIRUS WARNING!! - If you keep your virus definitions updated, and refuse to accept or send attachments that you can’t verify, then you’ll be just fine. Usually these come from the same computer illiterate morons who spread the virus around by forwarding the executable files of dancing pumpkins or whatever. I just love the way the media makes such a big deal out of every virus that comes along. Like this is something new.. an unprecedented plague that they use to show off their lack of computer skills live on the air. It warms my cold, black little heart to hear some 55-year old fart who hasn’t moved his ass out from behind a desk in years try to explain the dangers of the internet when he clearly has no concept of what the words on the teleprompter actually mean.
• EMAIL BETA TEST - This is one of my favories. It usually goes something like this: “Microsoft (also Disney or another big-name with big-money) is beta-testing some new email-tracking software and if you forward this to everyone you know Bill Gates (or Michael Eisner, or whoever) will give you $500!” Yeah, because Bill Gates is the nice, generous kind of evil, elitist, monopolistic trillionaire. Rich guys don’t get rich by giving their money away.. and even if they did, do you really think anybody needs your ‘help’ with their fictional technology? Sure, Microsoft is such a mom-and-pop shop that they can’t spare any of their own workers to test out new stuff..
• PERSONALITY SURVEYS – “Take this test! Add up the points and see what type of person you really are.” Ugh.. I know who I am.. I’m the guy sick of getting this crap. Also in this category are the questionaires that are 7-10 pages long asking such important questions like “what’s your favorite desert?” Ladies, if you want to find out the intricate details of my personality.. just have sex with me. That’s the easiest way. We can talk about your feelings afterward if you’d like.
• UPLIFTING FEEL-GOOD STORIES - Long, heart warming, faith-affirming stories of personal triumph, and traces of the “good in humanity.” Then at the end you read, “Forward this to 10 people within 2 minutes or you’re saying you hate Jesus.” What? That’s blackmail! You’re putting words in my mouth.. I never said I hate Jesus and I’m not going to hell when I delete your stupid drivel. I’m pretty sure God cringes every time you zealots start throwing his name around like you’re some name-dropping Hollywood phony.

Like I say, normally those are the categories. Lately, we’ve had a ton of crap come thru spreading ignorance, fear and hate in response to the September 11, 2001 acts of ignorance, fear and hate. Now the most common thing is, “I normally don’t forward these, but I know this is true because my girlfriend used to date a guy who heard a drunk Arab in a bar talking about how Nostradomus said that when Skittles changes their flavors, something bad will happen in the new city of Yorks.” Just shut-up.

In the immortal words of my favorite Grateful Dead song, “New Speedway Boogie”: “Please don’t dominate the rap, Jack / if you’ve got nothing new to say..”

The World Trade Center tragedy is the most horrible thing that has ever happened here in the US. I have nothing but sympathy and prayers for everyone affected by the terrorism. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the victims and survivors of this tragedy.. but my way of dealing with things is to be funny. I need a release.. we all need to get away from the carnage for a while and enjoy ourselves. Otherwise, we’ll all go crazy.

The only thing about this whole situation that made me laugh is the news coverage. The national networks did an ok job (For the most part.. the only beef I really have with them is the increasingly moronic Dan Rather who quoted “an ancient Oriental proverb that says, ‘Revenge is best served cold.’” Dammit, Dan.. there’s a HUGE difference between revenge and justice.).

Dan Rather’s lack of professionalism aside, the most ridiculous thing was the local news. Watching the coverage, there was a palpable feeling that the local teams were just chomping at the bit… praying for an excuse to break in and act like they’re big shots. Having worked in local television for years, I’m pretty sure there were quite a few anchors across the nation sitting at the desk in the studio pouting. “But, but.. it’s five o’clock! It’s my turn to be on tv! Waaaaaaahh! Boo-hoo for me! Where’s my airtime!?”

So they took over the bottom part of the screen rolling local headlines. Like there’s anything going on here in Nashville that is worth mentioning while planes are crashing into the biggest buildings in New York City. I fully expected to look up at the 14,576,329th replaying of the second crash and see scrolling across the screen: “From the newsroom: At this hour, T-E-M-A reports no end in sight for construction on I-24…” Well, duh. “Planet Hollywood closes it’s doors (a city mourns)…” Whoop-dee-doo!

Not satisfied with merely cluttering up the already congested screen with their drivel, they go the extra mile to squeeze a local angle out of the terrorism. The national feed is squeezed back into a box on the screen with the audio low.. the local kids have a little box in the corner: “Hello. I’m Bob Localguy interrupting Tom Brokaw for this special report. Actually, I just got a new haircut and wanted to see what it looked like on camera.” Then they go out to the airport to show video of pissed off people sitting around watching CNN. Thanks, local news idiots, but I can see that live right here in my living room.

Later in the day they figured out a way to justify breaking in live again.. they’d woken Governor Sundquist from his coma and propped him up in front of a microphone. He was in a daze. Reporters were firing away with the stupidest questions ever. I was fully expecting them to ask; “What steps have been taken to protect Tennessee from invasion by Arkansas?” “Do you have a contingency plan in case the Bellcourt Theatre falls into enemy hands?” “Will the National Guard be deployed to protect Opry Mills?” “How will we defend the Grand Ole Opry?” “Is the Parthenon in jeopardy?”

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At least David Letterman brought class back to television. If you missed the Late Show on Monday, September 17, man did you miss something special. That’s all there is to it. Dave knows exactly what to say when there’s NOTHING you can possibly say. He’s a hilarious comedian, a seasoned broadcaster, a legend in late night, a comedic genius.. but most importantly, a great man. A good person. I can’t possibly put into words the amount of respect and admiration I have. I’m proud to say he’s my hero.

If you did miss it, the video and audio clips are up at www.cbs.com/lateshow/ under “Dave TV.” His speech is under ‘Dave’s Monologues’, and ‘Big Show Highlight’. The Dan Rather interview is also under BSH. A transcript of Dave’s opening remarks is at David Yoder’s site.

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Michael Jackson is doing his part to help out the WTC victims.. he’s putting together another song (kinda like “We are the world”) called “What more can i give”…. What more can you give? I dunno. you’ve got an amusement park in your back yard, how ’bout you give some of your own damn money? I’m eating Raman Noodles every day.

Mike’s got a bunch of friends helping him out on this one: Destiny’s Child, Britney Spears, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys… ya know, if all these crappy, TRL-happy, cheesy-ass disposable pop groups can come together for the good of man.. can’t we ALL come together as a people? Huh? HUH?

We’ve all seen the video of planes crashing and buildings collapsing. People running for their lives screaming and wailing. Smoldering piles of rubble where the World Trade Center used to be and at the Pentagon. Our first thoughts go to the people in the buildings: friends, family, fellow Americans. I’ve called or emailed to check in with my friends in New York just to make sure they’re ok. Thankfully, nobody I know was involved in the attack. I hope you find your friends and family to be as lucky as mine were.

After watching television for 17 hours straight, seeing the events unfold live right in front of me, I went to sleep knowing I was safe. Crazy things like that don’t happen here. Nobody attacks Nashville. My house isn’t exactly a high-profile symbol of America that some weird foreigner wants to snuff out. Nobody in Jerusalem would cheer if CNN reported that my home had been destroyed. I can wake up at my leisure, turn on the tv and see what those wackos are up to off in those distant places.

I used to watch the fighting in the Middle East and think, “Wow. Sucks for them.” Then flip the channel until I found something funny. I wasn’t concerned with idiots blowing each other up on the other side of the world. It’s been going on a lot longer than I’ve been around.. in fact, they’ve been fighting forever.. and if you believe the Book of Revelations, you know that someday it’ll lead to Armageddon.

In the past, what this meant to me was: “I’m not vacationing in the Middle East. Those people aren’t any fun.” I’d rather hang out in the beautiful Tennesse Valley where my biggest worry is my dog’s flea problem. I go about my day thinking up jokes for my next set and funny things to do with my friends. About twice a year I make a pilgrimage to New York to see Late Show with David Letterman, The Daily Show, Late Night, and the Upright Citizens Brigade. Terrorist acts don’t affect me.

But wait a minute. What if some moron decides to blow something up next time I’m in New York? That might inconvenience me! What if the shows I want to see are cancelled? What if I can’t get a train to my friend’s apartment so I can crash when I’m tired? Unacceptable!

Something has to be done to stop these bastards. The FBI can arrest all the associates of the hijackers, but will that be enough? Won’t Osama bin Laden just send more rag-head maniacs to infiltrate our wonderful country and wreak havoc? We’ve got to stop them before they strike again! We need to round-up those crazy Arabs among us. That guy at the Jiffy Mart.. the family down the street. Who knows what they’ve been planning? We can’t trust them, they look different than we do!

As red-blooded Americans, we can’t stand for this attack on our home soil. We have to defend truth, justice and peace! We have to strike back at the bastards where it really hurts.. Jordan, Afghanistan.. we might as well get Saddam Hussein and Khadaffi while we’re at it. Hell, just NUKE ‘EM ALL! If we kill everybody, then we’ll show ‘em why we’re so much better than them.

So buy a US flag and fly it proudly. Wear your red, white and blue clothes and beat the hell out of everybody who doesn’t look like you. Most importantly, forward this to 10 people or you’ll have bad luck.